Beards and Art

I like grassy music. The kind of music where the band members have artsy beards and wear tight brown corduroy pants. The kind of people who would lay in the dry grass just to see if they can feel the earth move. They never wash, so the grass gets stuck in their artsy beards therefore making their music seem grassy. It's considered cool to like them until they get too many people who like them and then it becomes decidedly uncool. Then it's a competition to find the next grassy band and listen to them as much as possible before they too become uncool.

Tonight I stumbled across this blog: Misty Mawn. She's an artist and I love her work. So much texture!

Why is it that I always get a craving for coffee late at night? Maybe it was years of all-nighters or maybe it's a subconscious hatred of sleep. Going to sleep is glorious, waking up is a nightmare.

Just Call Me Ashella, the Poor, Underappreciated, Overworked Orphan

"Month of New Things" update:

#8 - Be organized/keep my room clean - fail.

This could be my caffeine-induced euphoria talking but I think March Madness is one of the greatest things ever created. UCLA just whooped the tar out of Xavier and they did so thoroughly. Also, I like the fact that these kids are 1) my age and 2) all have majors and lives outside of basketball. Wahoo Final 4!

Last night I watched "Enchanted." I was a bit skeptical at first, but I actually really liked it. It made me think, though, "Hey. I want a cartoon of me!" So I cracked out the colored pencils and got to work:

HAHAHA! Don't laugh at me. It's my first try at drawing a Disney style cartoon without copying something specific. "Why didn't you give yourself a crown and make yourself a rich, powerful princess?" you ask. Meh. I don't really dream big. Besides all the girls who end up happily start out as lowly peasants. They just marry up.

Thoughts

Do you ever feel really competitive with someone but feel stupid for feeling so competitive with this person? I do.

I love art so much. I think I want to marry it.

Last month, I had a dream that some people knocked on my door and I ducked down in the corner so they wouldn't see me. They flattened their face against the window, trying to find me, eyes wide and screamed, "Come to our youth group!!"

The human body is an amazing thing. We haven't even scratched the surface.

I miss having a dog but I don't miss picking up poop. The people downstairs wake up every morning before the sun, shoulders hunched, depressed face, dog on leash. I don't envy them.

I hate Scrabulous. I come up with words that should be real, but aren't. "Hice." It's a good word. The English language is arrogant. Arrogant!

Sometimes I want to run in a field with a sword in my hand and bellow, "I am Spartacus!"

Trumpet Sound:

There! Total overhaul, even a new name. I kind of like it.

Junk, Fodder, Spring Cleaning...Yard Sale, Anyone?

I used to think that my mom's second hand items obsession was tacky and embarrassing. I'm not totally converted but with my new perspective on life I'm starting to think it's kind of awesome. She'll take an old couch and reupholster it, buy an old cabinet that could easily be in an antique store but because it's at a thrift store it's 2 bucks. Finding little gems amongst a clutter of trash has a certain amount of triumph and accomplishment. As much as I swore I would never buy anything second-hand when I was younger, I have a feeling I'm at the top of a slippery slope and there's no where to go but down.

This is how I think: "Geez, I need a pet. It would be great fodder for my blog. If I lived in a great picturesque place, my blog would look so awesome. Oh a new drawing....blawg it!" I kid you not. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about this dark little corner of the internet. Speaking about it being a dark corner, it's time for some Spring cleaning. Let's open up the windows in this joint and let in some fresh air. I'm dedicating part of this weekend to rejuvenation.

Dr. Phil always manages to put my life into perspective. My mom and I have a really great life. We have little to no drama, we're emotionally stable, have no real problems other than the day-to-day issues. I like it that way. I'm pretty sure my life will be longer because of it.

Late Night Snack

It's 12:30am, I'm eating a fortune cookie and boiling eggs so I can devil them. Now, let's take a step back for a moment...(deep breath) what the heck am I thinking?! For some reason this need to get into all sorts of mischief comes over me around this hour. But, deviled eggs and fortune cookies? How do you even boil the eggs? When do you know when they're done?! I don't know, but I'm doin' it.

P.S. I think I got a good grade on my midterm review. Whoopee!

P.S.S. For some reason there's a local commercial that only comes on after 12am on CBS because it is so. asinine. that they would never let in on when real, normal people could see it. Maybe I'll go into commercial...making...directing? writing? whatever.

A Couple o' Drawings

Self portrait:

Copy of John Singer Sarget, Olimpio Fusco:

I have a portfolio review tonight in portrait drawing. I hope I get a good grade!!

Happy Easter!

It was a beautiful day to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The weather was sunny and bright. Very cheerful and all that. Normally, all this sun would put me in a foul mood but it seemed fitting today.

We started off the day late to church, as usual, followed by our semi-annual speed walk from the parking lot to the church sanctuary, brutally cutting off the couple walking in front of us, all in an effort to snag what surely was the very last two seats in the entire church. Holidays are always crowded, usually with visiting family members and friends.

Every Easter and Christmas our church choir sings a cantata and this day was no different. The songs were lovely, as usual and I can't wait to re-join the choir now that I have my wings (read: license).

A couple of years ago at college, I saw a senior art show where the artist took the note sheets and bulletins from Sunday service and drew various things she saw: the pastor, church members, pulpit, chairs, whatever. I am unashamedly stealing her idea. Actually, my one excuse is that I've done this for years, just never made a project out of it. Here's today's:

Some choir members and backs of heads.

I feel oddly exhausted today. It may have something to do with the fact that I couldn't fall asleep until 4 am and then woke up at 7 for church this morning. I'm going to treat myself to some mint chocolate chip ice cream and hit the sack. School starts up again tomorrow, I have to be totally refreshed and ready to go.

New Things: Official List

I'm starting to really get into this "Month of New Things". It's exciting! I cooked dinner almost every day this week. Normally, I hate cooking (because I'm lazy), but I tried it out and you know what? It's fun! I don't know if this counts as it's own new thing or if it's a sub-category. Let's call it a sub-category. So let's list:

1. Try to appreciate poetry (in progress)
2. Be less selfish
• Make baby blanket (in progress)
• Help out around the house/cook more (mission accomplished)
3. Dress more springy (in progress)
4. Go to a movie by myself
5. Actually finish books borrowed from library
6. Try a new kind of coffee and don't worry about wasted money if I don't like it
7. Take a picture of something without trying to make it good
8. Be organized/keep my room clean
9. Learn to play "Linus and Lucy" on the piano

This list will probably expand and the items will hopefully get more profound, but they also have to be realistic enough for me to complete them in a month.

New Things Month Continues...

New thing for the day: be less selfish.

I'm suffering empty nest syndrome since I've finished the E-Town hat and have decided to cast on for a new project, BUT! It will be for someone other than myself. I went to get some baby yarn this morning and I'm going to try my hand at my first baby blanket. Now, I'm off to find a pattern...

Dang! I forgot to fill out my bracket for March Madness!!

Finished Object!

Success! I have finished the E-Town hat (obligatory "Hallelujah Chorus") and if my suicidal computer can find it in his heart to upload pictures I may be able to show you. I altered it all over the place to accommodate my enormous head but I think all is well now.

(Sorry for the crummy pictures)

I'm making cookies at 12:30am while watching Craig Ferguson. Shh...don't tell my mom, she's asleep on the recliner. If she were to wake up and discover my shenanigans, she'd give me a look, an, "Aaaaaashhhh..." and a shake of the head. It's too late, woman! They're in! They're bakin'!

Speaking of Craig Ferguson, I just have to say: the man has about 5 jokes but manages to make me laugh hysterically at them each time. He's a genius I tell you, a genius!

Wha-?! Gah! I just burned the cookies!

Also, freak out!

Smmmmmm...Yup, Definitely Clean Air

This will be my month of trying new things. Since we're already over halfway into March, we'll make it from March 19th to April 19th. I tend to get stuck in ruts and I'm ready to break it.

New thing of the day: I'm trying my hand at appreciating poetry. I think it may have something to do with the fact that I fail quite miserably at it. Well, no more! I picked up the Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson in honor of Women's Awareness Month and am tolerating it. Actually I have enjoyed quite a few and loved "In a Library" to which I could definitely relate. Also in honor of this month I picked up a biography of Marie Curie and The Years by Virginia Woolf. Nobody tell me if it's bad! I don't want to know! I have to figure it out by myself or I will never read it.

Hhhhhhhhh...The E-Town hat is failing miserably. I decided to blindly follow the length requirement of the pattern even though every fiber of my being told me not to. It turns out that my instinct was right and now I'm frogging like it's 1990*.

*Don't ask me why it should be 1990, just accept and move on.

I Can't Think of a Title.

Technology has it out for me today. My DVD player was skipping all over the place yesterday and today, *sob*. My 2nd source of entertainment! My first source of entertainment, my computer, started beeping this afternoon. It sounded a bit like the countdown to self destruct. I turned it off immediately, then turned it back on and it kept doing it. Ah! All is well now, though.

I spent the day clearing out the junk from my life. Specifically, my room. I had clothes everywhere, massive tangles of yarn and patterns and needles (the knitting kind, not the drug kind).

It's only day 2 of Spring Break and I'm already getting cabin fever. Get me out of here!!!

Smmmm...Is that Clean Air I Smell?

I've got a lot of junk in my life: mental junk, emotional junk, there's a lot of junk on my computer, some junk in the trunk, junk stored under my bed, my closet's a wreck and you don't even want to know what's in my purse. I'm on Spring Break right now so this is a perfect opportunity to clear the air. I'm ready for a new start! Pardon me while I don my combat gear and charge headfirst into the crap-pile of my life.

I'm working on the Mary Jane's E-Town Hat. I've started and restarted it at least 5 times. I'm trying to revise it to work with my limited resources and if it doesn't work this time I'm going to cry tears of bitter pain and resentment. If anyone wants to give me a gift (though I'm not sure why anyone would because I owe many people many Christmas presents. Hey! That's some more junk/loose ends I can clear out!) I want an entire set of circular needles. All lengths, all types.

[Edit] Happy St. Patty's Day!! I uh, really don't have a gift for you or anything (see paragraph above) but here uh, have some green shoes.

Church!

God is so gracious. I don't mean that flippantly or irreverently, I actually mean God is gracious. He's been gracious to me in quite a few ways lately most of which I will spare you the gory details but it hit me suddenly as I was pulling into the parking lot at Peet's. You see, as a new driver, I'm still bad at driving and sometimes I get the brake pedal and the gas pedal a little, shall we say, reversed. Now, in a full parking lot, this is an unfortunate handicap that would best be hidden, lest some unsuspecting pedestrian should die. Let's just say, by God's infinite grace, there was no contact made between anything but my brain and the realization that I am completely incompetent.

The rest of my drive was surprisingly smooth (and picture perfect; no other pedal mix-ups). It was maybe the second time in my life that I've gone to church alone. My mom had to work today, so I stole asked nicely for the car. It was nice in a way but kind of strange in another. I liked the freedom and independence (and I'm a more active listener) but it felt kind of out of the ordinary and uncomfortable.

As an instinctual drawer, I'm always looking for new things to put down on paper and church is an excellent place to do this. You can people watch and no one even sees you or thinks you're weird. It's like you have 100 models just begging to be drawn. Well, the backs of their heads anyway. My bulletins and notes sheets usually end up looking like this:

I got a bit into sketching at one point and I missed the last bullet. Oops.

It's Cold Outside (!)

As a chronically lazy knitter, I'm always looking for high impact, low velocity patterns which makes me a knitting book/magazine hunter. Something I've noticed: if the words "Chic" or "Trendy" are in the title, chances are the book is neither chic nor trendy, just lame.

Today, I took my first venture into the outside world as a licensed driver, I went to Starbucks. Fitting, no? I blasted my favorite driving song and sang at the top of my lungs (while staying alert and defensive, of course). I stayed embarrassingly close to home. Tomorrow, I solo it on the freeway.

My mom and I spent the day antiquing downtown. You know, it's always the times you don't have a camera that the most photo opportunities happen. There were at least 50. We have a very historical town and today there was a stage coach driving around with some people dressed in 1850s period costumes. It was cool and I missed it but this will never happen again.

Something funny: when my mom worked at the school, she was with the kids at a back table in the classroom, and she took out her chapstick from her pocket and started to rub it on her lips. The kids looked at her like she was crazy. She wondered why and looked down at her chapstick which, in fact, was glue.

Oops.

Well, I crashed the car during the test and I failed.

Actually, I lie. That was the kid who went before me. You think I'm kidding? I passed with flying colors and by flying colors, I mean 100%. Score, fist pump. Still though, my mom screams and recoils when I pull out of parking spaces, merge on the freeway, pull into parking spaces, turn on the blinker, stop at stop signs, pretty much anything really. I did all of the same exact things I do with her on the test and the man gave me 100%. It's her. Not me.

Look out world, here I come.

Huh? What? I Don't Understand You. My Brain is Gone.

Today...has been an interesting day. You know those days when you just feel off your game? Like every time you try to be a real life person, you fall the other way and suddenly you're a bumbling idiot who's running into walls? I walked around in a haze all day. Tomorrow, I have my driver's test. Yes. I'm 21 and I don't have a license. But that's not the point. Well, today I was driving in the general area of the DMV just to get a feel for the territory and we almost died 5 times. Let me just say, it doesn't boost the confidence much. I'm already nervous. It's just that my depth perception isn't working well today and my foot feels heavier and my peripheral vision is a little lax. I'm going to pray that my brain works by tomorrow.

Here's Some Spring, Take It!

So, I've been feeling a bit like ye ol' blog has been a bit depressing lately so here are some cheery, springy pictures (fresh off the camera) for mood enhancement purposes:







See? Don't we all feel better?

Reflections

I know this is my 3rd post today, but I'm willing to accept the "no life" label. My recent lack of life has, as I've said before, let me to spend quite a bit of time online reading blogs, etc. You know, you don't really think of the people on the other side of these blogs as having real lives. They become sort of entertainment for the masses but every once in a while, I realize these are actual people with actual problems who loose loved ones and face troubled children and have to deal with tragic circumstances all alone. In a way we're all connected with this bizarre thing we call the internet but at the same time, we're separated by the invisible barrier, "Publish Post". Real life friends are tangible, you can hug each other when one needs it but online all you can do is post words on a screen. No, that's not true. I can pray for them which is more important than any hug could ever be. Isn't it wonderful that God isn't bound by stupid little things like the internet and...time and space?

Something Funny:

A bus driver slamming on his breaks while the heads of an entire bus full of people fly forward in unison and hit the seat in front of them. This happened to me today.

Daylight Savings, You Can Kiss My...erm...Foot

Seriously guys, who came up with this horrible idea and when can we go beat him with his own Daylight Saved clocks? What time is it technically right now? 7amish? So, I've already been up for an hour and a half which means without Daylight Savings, I've been up since 4:30am. Hhh. Where's the justice?

I'm feeling a bit nauseous. It could be the fact that I've been up since the ungodly hour of 5:30, it could also very well be due to the fact that I really don't want to go to school today. Or the fact that my uncaffeinated body is languishing for that first sip. Maybe all of the above.

Okay, so enough of the early morning complaints. I just had to get it out of my system. I've started my first real knitting project. It's just the simple March Basic pattern. I figured it would be a good place to start. I hadn't gone more than an inch on the back panel before I had worked myself into a stressed frenzy. Is this right? Will it fit? Will my gauge be okay? Am I setting myself up for failure? So far so good though. It might be a bit short, but that's okay right? The cropped cardigan...it's all the rage.

Well, I'd better go. School calls.

Sleepy Saturday

My blog bookmarking is getting a little out of hand. Current count: 62; all checked daily. It's an obsession I'm not sure I can keep up for much longer. Every time I think about cutting back I think of all the work I'll have to put in reading all the back posts when I start up again. No, no, better to keep up with them while they're current...but it's taking over my life...help...help...help...

In other desperate news, Ravelry is down while "upgradin ur serverz" and I need a cardigan pattern right. now. (The springy cardigan is back in and I'm giddy).

Alright, that's enough talking. I'm like the blog version of Seinfeld only not even comparable to its brilliance. We're just both about nothing.

Here are some sketches/quick drawings from class on Wednesday. I'm starting to really love this Portrait Drawing class:

Caffeine Free

I didn't have any coffee today and guess what, I'm still alive. Well, barely. I can tell you one thing though, this will not be happening again. First thing tomorrow I'm brewing myself a steaming hot cup of bliss.

New favorite thing: discovering cute clothes in my closet I have never worn before. I tend to think of my closet as a swirling vortex of bad ideas, but lately I've been pumping new life into old ideas and I'm finding I feel cuter in my new old clothes than I ever have in my old new clothes. Big deal in my blah little world of sweatshirts and ratty shoes.

I've starting knitting a shrug but I'm not sure I'm going to stick with it so no pictures to break up endless monotony of words. Speaking of endless monotony, this seems like a good place to end this post. Bye!

Today, I Become an Artist...

...actually, it was yesterday. Details, details. What brought about this change, ask you? Well let me tell you. Someone was interested enough in my work to offer me money. It seems like not that big of a deal but it really was. That, and I felt really cute and artish looking yesterday...which helped. It has given me a certain amount of confidence I didn't have before. More confidence in a "I need to get much better and here's my renewed drive to be assertive" and not a "I'm so much better than you and I have nothing more to learn" way.

Here in California, Spring is rearing its ugly little head. The sun is coming out and birds are chirping and there's a general feeling of happiness hanging in the air that just makes me sick. Winter! Why hast thou forsaken me?! I decided though, since it's pretty inescapable, I might as well play along. I took my camera around with me all day. Since green is my favorite color and is indisputably springy it was my color-scheme of choice:


Meanwhile, in the political world, CBS News has interrupted Big Brother 9 Till Death Do Us Part twice. Twice! Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont, how dare you do anything newsworthy on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Sunday! During the best part! Katie Curic, you're going down. DOWN.

"Just a filler in the space that happened to be free..."

I'm swearing off sugar for good. It always seems like a good idea until you actually eat some and then suddenly you're rolling on the floor in agony while little gummie bears dance past your eyes pointing their fingers and laughing maniacally.

But! My mom did make some amazing yellow cake products today.

Some puppy cupcakes (You can thank me for the adorable licorice ears which gladly upstage the rest of the cupcake. I know. Best part, right?)



Also, I've been working busily on this Drops design cable bag. The pattern was in British knitting language (which really isn't that much different) so it made me feel doubly cool and cultural. I know, I know, I'm a chronic looser but I don't care.


It still needs buttons, some sort of clasp, and a strap/handle. That will be for tomorrow.

I have a playlist on my iPod called "Seattle" that I have recently re-discovered. As a matter of fact, I'm a little obsessed with it. I keep adding and subtracting songs from it, slowly refining it to its full terrifying potential. Latest addition: ADELE, "Best for Last". Up for eviction: Rocky Votolato, "Goldfield".

Speaking of eviction: Like, OMGROFLMAOBRBBTW!!!! Allison is about to get pwned.

What? Antimatter? Cosmic Rays? Gravitational Waves?! Nooooooooo!

Today I was doing a bit of clicking in my iTunes and came across an old podcast I used to listen to. All about physics and astronomy. Suddenly this wave of nausea rolled over me and I got a bit lightheaded. The simple memory of those 3 dark years of physics majordom was enough to stop me in my tracks. Once I got over this though, I started to reminisce and now I feel kind of sad. I miss those years in a way. I had wanted to be an astrophysicist since Jr. High. I spent so many hours dreaming about my job and what I'd study. Something happened when I got to college, though. It wasn't fun anymore. I've been taking a bit of a hiatus from astronomy for awhile just because I got so overloaded, but maybe it's time to take it up [as a hobby] again. Darn you Absence. Making my heart grow fonder.